Ventilation – Clean room
Patent
1994-07-28
1997-08-26
Joyce, Harold
Ventilation
Clean room
134902, F24F 316
Patent
active
056605854
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention in question concerns a clean-room island for the manufacture of objects, in particular semiconductors, memory boards, medicaments, pharmaceutical articles, foodstuffs etc., and a method of clean-room handling of objects, stored in receptacies, which require clean-room conditions in manufacture.
For the manufacture and processing of various objects, such as semiconductors, medicaments, pharmaceutical articles and the like, the cleanest possible ambient air conditions are required. To achieve this, various classes of clean-room were defined by clean-room technologists, each permitting specific particle sizes and quantities. These classes begin with clean-room class 10000, which is the poorest level, and end with class 0.01, which is the best. In between, there are the classes 1000, 100, 10, 1, 0.1. In order to achieve a certain class of clean-room, an enormous amount of apparatus is required. In addition, even if the equipment guarantees an adequate class of clean-room, the objects are very quickly contaminated once more by the persons handling them. The effort required to achieve the right clean-room conditions increases from class to class, and has led to the design of a variety of systems in which the handlers are enclosed in an astronaut-type suit connected to an air supply, so that all contact between the persons handling the objects and the objects themselves is avoided.
An improvement in this regard was brought about by the so-called SMIF (Standard Mechanical Interface) concept from the ASYIST company, as described in the Journal Solid State Technology, July 1984, page 111, and in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,995,430, 4,974,166, 4,859,137, 4,815,912, 4,739,882, 4,724,874, 4,674,936, 4,676,709, 4,674,939 and the EP OS 292235, 288455. The subjects of the claims in these publications refer to individual elements of this concept. The basic point of the concept is that the objects to be worked on in a clean-room environment, in this case semiconductor wafers, are processed in a clean-room environment and are sealed in receptacles in that clean-room environment. These receptacles are able to maintain a certain clean-room class, although there are special so-called active receptacles which additionally filter the air in the receptacles and thus are able to maintain a higher level of clean-room class. These receptacles are then taken by the handlers to another processing station. The area in which the handlers are working must necessarily be a poorer class of clean-room. The receptacles are then inserted into a specially-designed interface device, which opens the receptacle in a specific way from below, in order to prevent the dirt particles deposited on the exterior surface of the receptacle during transit from coming into contact with the objects or entering the clean-room area when the receptacle is opened. From this device, the objects (semiconductor wafers) then enter the clean-room in which further processing is to be carried out. This concept has the disadvantage that it requires relatively large clean-room areas with high clean-room quality, and additionally a clean-room design and receptacle construction which is precisely adapted to the interface device. The concept is therefore not universally adaptable for other objects, such as memory boards, medicaments or other objects. The DE-OS 38 26 925 reveals a facility for the handling and treatment of objects sensitive to contamination, such as semiconductor components or similar products under clean-room conditions, with at least one clean-room area containing work surfaces for the treatment of the objects and an operator area of a lower clean-room level, in which the objects are accommodated, handled and transported in cassette-type containers or the like. In the operator area at least one mobile trolley is provided, incorporating at least one principally enclosed compartment with the means of storing a number of cassettes, whereby in this room a specific facility on the trolley itself is dedicated to the permanent maintaining of clean-room condi
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Schwarze Juergen
Swoboda Bruno
Wild Ingo
Bussan Matthew J.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Joyce Harold
LandOfFree
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